Do you feel that your voice is under-represented in the information community, whether because of your age, ethnicity, gender, or other factor? Would you like the opportunity to share your perspective and experience? Thanks to the generous support of our Byte level sponsors, the NISO Plus conference (February 23-25, 2020, Baltimore, MD) is welcoming applications for travel scholarships to enable people whose voices are often excluded — and who wouldn't otherwise be able to attend — to participate in this important new information industry conference.
NISO Plus is intended as a successor to — and expansion of – the former NFAIS annual conference, and we want to make it as inclusive as possible of the information community in every way. It’s intended as a place where publishers, vendors, librarians, archivists, product managers, metadata specialists, electronic resource managers, and others come together to solve existing problems and to kickstart the conversations we need to have in order to prevent future problems from occurring. We are still putting the program together, but you can see an outline here.
There are two categories of scholarship:
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The Equity & Diversity scholarships are intended for anyone who feels that they are under-represented in libraries, vendors, publishers, or other parts of the information ecosystem. This includes all aspects of diversity - we want to encourage and hear from information professionals who can provide different perspectives from the voices we traditionally hear from in our community
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Early Career scholarships are open to individuals who have been working in the information profession for five years or less. They are intended to help connect, train, and encourage the next generation of information professionals, whose perspectives and opinions will help shape the future of information creation, organization, retrieval, and access
The successful applicants will receive full conference registration, economy travel/airfare (which we will arrange or reimburse), three nights in the conference hotel, and a stipend for meals while traveling. We welcome applications from anyone who meets these criteria and wants the opportunity to engage with and learn from colleagues from right across the information community.
If you — or anyone you know — are interested in participating (or already planning to attend!), please complete and submit this form by January 22. All applications will be reviewed by a small committee of representatives from NISO’s staff, Board, and wider community, and applicants will be notified about whether you have been successful by January 31.
We look forward to receiving your applications!